BUTTER FAT TAX.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 28 June 1917, Page 2

BUTTER FAT TAX.

HOME TRUTHS BY MINISTER.

"I do not think I need touch on the butter-fat tax," said the Minister of Agriculture, at the A and P. smoke concert at Palmerston North, but there was a very vigorous demand for some reference to it, and, with the remark, "I'll have a go," Mr. MacDonald proceeded to one of the most effective speeches he has yet delivered on the question. Concerning the necessity for the tax, Mr. MacDonald declared that exploiting was going on, and the question was frhether the whole community, should be allowed to suffer. The complaint against Government interference was not confined to the butter tax. One sheep farmer was going through the Dominion declaring that the graziers were losing millions through the commandeering of their products, and another man declared that they were losing money on pelts. Why should they not be allowed to send them to America, where they would receive a lot more for them? "No doubt," commented Mr. MacDonald, "we could get a whole lot more for our products, if we sent them to Germany." (Laughter.) "Although you have been in the unfortunate position of not being able to ship all your butter, you have already shipped £2,(500,000 worth, which is only £20,000 short of last year, notwithstanding all there is in store. "When the tax was imposed, the farmers said 1/7 or 1/8 per lb. was not much to pay for butter, but,'' asked the Minister, "who was going to say when it would be 2/ If the merchants had their own sweet will it would soon have risen to that price. As a matter of fact, the very day we decided to make an adjustment the retailers wanted to. put the price up to 1/11 for a start, The next price would have been 2/. They were ready then to rush out into the country, breaking down motor-cars, in their efforts to get to the farmers to say what they would take for their whole output. The pre-war price of butter-fat was 11.2 d lb. To-day the price was higher. I don't wont to take the price one fraction of a penny from the farmer, but if everybody is to get the price he desires lheav.cn krfows 'what the people living in this country would have to pay. A Government,'' said Mr.j MacDonald, with great emphasis, "is only a circumstance in the history of nation, bvt while it is there it must try to deal out justice to all classes. I want to tell the landholder, whether they are leaseholders or freeholders, that they have an absolute duty to perform to the people of this country. We have no desire to interfere with adman's trading concerns, which is a most unpleasant thing, but there comes a time in every nation when the individual's rights have to be curtailed and certain hardships borne. "We have had all sorts of palliatives suggested to replace the butter-fat tax. Put. on an export duty, said on authority. But I tell you that not one single source from which revenue can be produced will be left untapped this season to pay our war indebtedness. It is the simplest thing in the world to put on an export tax, but it is not so easy to take it off again. All sorts of temporary taxes are put on, but when the Government finds what good revenue-produc-ers they are, those taxes remain." In conclusion, Mr. MacDonald, made an eloquent appeal for men who were fighting for their country, and a demand that all classes should be prepared to bear their share of the hardsips. "THAT INIQUITOUS TAX."

Mr. Morton, president of the National Dairy Association, later in the evening, made a .rather spirited reply to the Minister. Eeferring to "that iniquitous tax," he said that they had not yet had the satisfaction of knowing that the Minister was going to redress the grievous wrong inflicted upon the dairying industry. Recently the Minister hinted that Parliament would probably devise some other means of meeting the situation, but the speaker did not say they should necessarily provide another tax. (Laughter.) He hoped the present tax would be removed, and that Parliament would see fit to reimburse the farmers the amount they had contributed. Mr. Morton declared the tax represented a duty cf 4 per cent, on the output of factories, and it was for the benefit, not of the Imperial Government for the conduct of the war, but for a number of people at least one-third of whom were in a better position to pay for their butter ' than those on whom the tax was imposed.